Forging a Nation: Smoke
by Bronze Cat
Summary: He has a Telmarine father and a Sevenese mother but he himself feels like neither. All he wants to do is skip and play and adventure the day away. However, he is about to stumble across a world he did not know existed any more; and it's about to cause many questions to take root in his mind. After all, there is no smoke without fire.
**This is a one-shot from my _Forging a Nation_ series. Please read the first part _Ashes_ before reading this fic, as both the main character here and the structure of my Telmarine world are more fully explained in the main story itself! Happy reading!**

* * *

"Lorrin, put on your shoes! Lorrin, don't climb up that! Lorrin, get out of my room!" the little boy muttered in a high-pitched imitation of his sisters. He paused to kick off the offending shoes and continued on his way; shoes in hand and naked toes wigging gratefully into the soil.

He jumped up onto a stump and struck a pose. "Lorrin, why can't you behave?" he said in the same weary manner as his father, glaring at a nearby tree.

The tree had the decency to look mildly offended.

He giggled and leapt down.

Off he went again, traipsing through the woods of his father's lands. He had not wanted to come back here. He didn't care that it was "technically" home. The manor house on the outskirts of the village of Beruna had never felt like home to him. He had been born in the house of his mother's parents in Redhaven, the capital of the Seven Isles, and had been raised in the royal Telmarine court at Beaversdam where his father was a Lord and a member of the Council. They would come to the manor at Beruna for a few weeks surrounding his father's birthday in high summer and again at Midwinter but that was it.

This was neither of those times. Today was a rather warm and pleasant day in late spring but they had been uprooted and exiled to the country because his sister wanted to get married at Beruna. His third sister, to be precise.

He had four in total but they weren't real sisters because they had a different mother. The eldest, Rebeca, was actually older than his own mother. She didn't approve of their father's second marriage and she definitely didn't like him.

Well, none of them really did. But, as Father had told him very seriously one afternoon, that was because they were only girls and all they could hope to inherit was a bit of money and some heirlooms. He, Lorrin, was heir to Beruna and he was going to inherit his father's titles and lands and most importantly he was going to inherit the Axe of the River's Run.

On the very serious afternoon, Father had taken him to the Chamber of the Weapons off the Armoury and had shown him the two keys that he kept on a chain around his neck. One opened the door to the Chamber and the other opened the case the Axe was kept inside. The Axe was going to be his and one day he was going to be a friend and advisor to the King.

There was another reason why he was so annoyed at the current exile. He had slowly, over the past week, been playing with Prince Caspian. This was rare. The Prince was usually accompanied everywhere by his cousin Isadora but the little tyrant had been in bed with the flu all week. Lorrin had taken full advantage of her absence and had been hoping to be invited to play again.

But nooooooo, Viviana just _had_ to decide that she wanted to get married in Beruna and completely ruin his plans.

Tired of all the female fussings, and to escape the nightmare of an outfit Vivi wanted him to wear, he had arisen slightly before dawn, filled his knapsack with snacks from the kitchens and some other useful things, and set off into the woods.

He was enjoying the adventure thus far. He'd swung from trees, managed to ford the great river, and generally skipped, jumped and tumbled on his merry way. It was completely and utterly the most fun he had had in quite some time; a true adventure.

The trees up ahead were beginning to thin. He could see that the light had changed from the cool green of the forest into the bright glare of the open sun and it caused him to slow down slightly. Hopefully it wouldn't be another river or, worse, hopefully he hadn't somehow looped back around to arrive at Beruna again. He couldn't hear any water flowing so he tentatively edged forward and poked his head out between the trees.

It was not a river, thankfully, but neither was he back at Beruna. He was standing on one side of a vast meadow. He left the protection of the trees and edged out slowly, the grass cool beneath his bare feet. On the far side of the meadow lay a strange structure. It looked like it was made of stone and it was all overgrown and ruined, or so he thought.

He laughed and set off towards it at a sprint. His feet flew through the long grass and he spread his arms wide, screeching his head off like he was the Black Eagle incarnate. As he neared the stone archways, he slowed from his sprint to a jog and then came to a complete halt.

It looked to his little eyes like an odd sort of temple. The air about it was heavy, the way it felt before a thunderstorm, but it didn't feel dangerous. It felt comforting; like returning to a warm bedroom on a cold day.

He shrugged off his knapsack and sat it down on a weird stone square before the entrance. The inside of the structure looked dark. Thankfully, he had remembered to tie a little lantern to the outside of his bag and had packed some waterproof matches in one of the inside pockets. He was fully prepared for any adventure!

In a flash, the little lantern was lit and he was trudging down into the dark entrance.

About halfway down, he was wondering if he should turn back. Inside it was so gloomy that he could not see a thing beyond the tiny circle of light that his lantern cast. Underneath his feet, he could feel compacted earth and the occasional stone. He could also feel the great weight of the structure above his head and the closeness of the walls on all side.

However, he did not feel claustrophobic. He wanted to keep going. Something was calling to him out of the darkness.

As he moved on, deeper and deeper, he suddenly passed into an open space. The light from his lantern fell upon something ahead of him and he stepped forward to take a closer look. It was a stone table; broken and cracked down the centre.

He placed the lantern down on one corner of the table and climbed up onto it. He crouched down and ran his fingers through some of the sand scattered over it. It was so pure and fine, more like a dust and not the coarser sands of the Narnian coast.

He smiled to himself and then paused. Something was in the darkness with him. He could hear it breathing in the black beyond the edge of the table. His own breath caught in his throat as the strange, rasping breath moved towards him.

Two eyes appeared in the darkness, glinting in the light of his lantern. They moved forward again and the lion's head moved into the little circle of light.

He froze. He didn't know whether to bolt or to scream or to find something to throw at it.

It blinked, slowly, and he tried his hardest to supress a whimper of fear.

"Hello, little one," it said.

With a scream, he jumped backwards and knocked over the lantern. They were plunged into darkness and he scrabbled away as fast as he could. Lurching from wall to wall and stubbing his toes far too many times, he somehow made it out of the darkness and into the bright sunshine.

Now sobbing quite earnestly, he grabbed his knapsack and sprinted back the way he had come. He did not stop until he was all the way back at Beruna and running up the long winding road to the manor house.

As he neared the house, the door opened and one of his sisters, Adelia, ran out.

"Papa! Pála! He's here, he's back!" she screamed over her shoulder and then hurried to meet him. For what he thought was the first time in his life, she swept him into her arms.

"Oh Lorrin, you gave us all such a fright!" she said. "Where have you been? Where are your shoes? How did you get so dirty?"

Then his mother was there, and his other sisters, and his father who looked unusually flustered. They were all hugging him, and checking he was not hurt, and he only had one answer to all their questions.

"I've been on an adventure."

* * *

A few months later and his adventure was all but forgotten. He'd worn the sham of an outfit to Viviana's wedding, he'd returned home to Beaversdam to discover Isadora fully recovered and fully in control of Prince Caspian once more, and he was now in his home away from home in Redhaven.

To be more precise, he was currently seated on the floor of Morfar's study.

Morfar was his mother's father. He had another name, as all grown-ups do, but Lorrin knew him as Morfar because that was the Sevenese word for your mother's father. Lorrin liked when his mother taught him Sevenese. It made him feel special.

"Pappa, you know these books are banned!" his mother was moaning as she sorted through some of the piles.

"Oh Pála, what are you going to do? Report me?" Morfar replied crossly.

"No, of course not, but if Lorenzo knew-"

"I am not frightened of that husband of yours," he sneered. "You want to tell him? Go tell him. They're only bits of paper."

"They are about Aslan! Please, Pappa, get rid of them, you know they are banned!" his mother pleaded.

"You say that every time you come back here and yet no-one has ever found them! I'm careful with my things," he said.

As they continued to bicker, Lorrin stood and walked over to one of these books his mother was so keen for Morfar to dispose of. He turned the pages and paused as he recognised one of the drawings. It was the structure he had visited on his adventure. His eyes scanned the page again and he read the inscription underneath: _Aslan's How_.

With a flick of his wrist, he closed the book. There on the front was a golden lion's face. And, despite the fact that it could have been any lion, Lorrin was certain that this one was the same as the lion in the room with the Stone Table. At the time, he had been scared that the lion was going to eat him. Now he thought that maybe it had just wanted to talk. Narnia had once been home to all sorts of Talking Beasts after all. Maybe it really had been Aslan.

He grinned to himself and promised that he would go back there one day. He was going to be brave and he was going to find the lion and he was going to talk to it. One glimpse had been like spotting a trail of smoke curling into the sky and he was now eager to find the fire that had made it.

He did return to the How – many, many times - but it was a very long time before he saw the Great Lion again.


End file.
